From the mid-morning of November 6^th 2024, I was on a long-distance bus on the Yucatan peninsula travelling between Campeche and Palenque, in eastern Chiapas. Even though I had purchased 5 Gs of cellular data for emergency use, I promised myself a news blackout through the day. In fact, I had timed my Mexican getaway in order to avoid the U.S. election.  Yet by mid-afternoon, I was getting itchy. I knew by that time there would be exit-polling hints about the likely outcome…

Unable to resist, I tried to open ‘The New York Times’ home page. ‘It seems you are off-line,’ the iPhone screen informed.  That would not be the the first time on the twelve-day trip that the Nomad e-sim app failed. Yet at that moment, the absence of Wi-Fi was like booze out of reach of a recovering alcoholic.  Between giddiness and nausea, I watched the Yucatan jungle roll past the bus window.  

It was almost dark when we reached Palenque. Before I was settled in the spartan Garden Hotel it was 7:30 PM EST.  Exhausted, I feel asleep. Around 11:00 PM, I awoke in pitch blackness. With the election springing to mind, I groped for my iPhone. It took several seconds for the weak Wi-Fi to summon American news. Trump was significantly ahead in Pennsylvania and cybercurrency trading was going wild. That was first confirmation of what gut-sense had long expected.

I fell back into fitful sleep until around 1:00 AM. By then, Trump was winning in all the swing states, but the election had yet to be called. The last thing I could bear was a Trump victory speech. Yet for the rest of the night, I woke on the hour to tap my tiny screen for the grave updates. At 5:30 AM, the overhead light was on when CNN called the election. For a long time, I stared numbly at the ceiling fan. In that steamy tropical setting, it would be several hours before the new reality began sinking in…

The Mayan pyramids of Palenque, shrouded in the Mexican jungle near the Guatemalan border, had long been on my bucket-list. Yet in stepping out of a minivan at the park entrance at 9:00 AM on November 7^th, there was little capacity for awe…  Only in taking in the vista from atop el Templo de la Cruz was the pall of gloom momentarily lifted. For most of the visit, I walked half dazed amid the horde of other tourists (largely bussed in from the new Tren Maya). Sopping in sweat, I was at the exit an hour before pickup time…

By then, I wanted only to be back in my hotel room with the air-con blasting. I needed a nap along with some information about the international reaction to Amerika’s middle finger to the world…

In the meantime, it had slipped my weary brain that I had signed up for a day-long tour to additional sites… I had no idea that would entail five hours in the back of a cramped minivan… At that moment, I could not have guessed that until 8:00 PM–– I was in for a masochistic delight…

From the Palenque ruins, we proceeded to cascada Misol-Ha, one of several waterfalls of eastern Chiapas.  After taking a few obligatory photos, I waited listlessly in the parking lot. I was hot, tired, and sore.  Around 3:00 PM, we set off on another winding jungle road towards cascada agua azul. That waterfall and natural swimming pools should have been a highlight of my trip.  Unfortunately, I was programmed for misery… By late afternoon, I had worked myself into a tizzy about missing the morrow’s bus back to the Yucatan. The old gringo pacing for nearly two hours up and down the kiosks must have made an odd spectacle. 

Just as we were readying for the long drive back to Palenque, the driver had bad news. The highway was shut down for the investigation of a fatal accident. Because the victim was an indigenous person on indigenous territory, the driver claimed the duration of the road closure was uncertain (“Mucho dinero,” he rubbed his fingers in indicating the guilty driver’s liability). On his phone he showed me a Facebook-posted video of a white-sheeted corpse on the side of the road. The ominousness felt since early morning sharpened in intensity…

After some deep breathing, I felt calm enough to briefly chat (in English) with one of my fellow passengers by the roadside in the growing dusk. In his mid-seventies, he was a Mexican national who had recently returned to Guadalajara after living several years living near Oakland, California. Of the US election result he said dismissively:

“It’s no surprise. A super-rich guy will made sure that he and his super-rich friends get even richer.”  With a rueful chuckle, he added: “Well, my wife and I saw it coming. We figured we’d better get out before Trump kicks us all out!” He also mentioned that his two kids and their families remained in California. “They don’t want to leave,” he said.

Mercifully, the road opened at 6:30 PM. It would be long after sunset before the driver dropped me off at the Garden Hotel.

After packing, I connected my laptop with the hotel Wi-Fi and perused the usual news sources. Particularly distressing was the video clip of a jubilant IDF soldier celebrating Trump’s victory by randomly firing his machine gun into Gaza rubble… Then there was the report of emails received by African university students advising them to report to a plantation to pick cotton. MAGA celebrants, it appeared, were joyously aping their master’s sense of humour…    

Earlier alarm about the existential threat to democracy was notably absent from both ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’ websites. Their focus rather seemed to be on the surprising strength of the new GOP “coalition”. That rush to normalize Trump by cowed liberal media was no surprise. Like millions of others that night, I resolved to cancel subscriptions and more broadly wean away from the US news addiction…

Still, that night in Palenque was not as dark as in the aftermath of the previous Trump victory. Being in an exotic locale did lessen the gloom. In contrast, the shock and desolation of November 8^th 2016, was further deepened by news of the death of the maestro of poetic darkness, Leonard Cohen…

Yet even in Palenque, the bad news had to be absorbed along with recognition that the Trump of 2024 will be unencumbered by the guardrails imposed by a few of his 2016 appointees. The former Trump may soon come to be seen as relatively sane and predictable. 

Meanwhile, in those first twenty-four hours, I had yet to confront a fact that would have made the night even darker than that of November 7^th, 2016. That year, I was eight years younger and already retired. Eight years later, I begin the new MAGA era as an old man. Even if I am lucky enough to make it to January 2029––I will be in my late seventies.  Am I to be Trump-tormented to the last of my days?

In that possibility, I thought of how it must have felt to be in one’s seventies in 1933… That was the year Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Soon to follow was the mysterious fire in the Reichstag upon which dictatorial power was granted to the Fuhrer. Fascist regimes were already in power in Italy, Spain and Japan. Elsewhere, democracies were besieged with disillusionment and economic depression… Old folks must have felt a darkness descending from which only the young could hope to emerge… 

In the days thereafter (even with the sporadic Wi-Fi at my stopover hotels), I gathered grim updates:

Trump’s cabinet picks––– especially RFK Jr.  and Tulsi Gabbard–– were wilder than expected. The commonality in the others appeared to be TV appeal and lapdog loyalty.

The most blatantly corrupt appointment was Elon Musk’s assignment to a new Department of Government Efficiency. (Not uncoincidentally––‘DOGE’ is also the name of his favourite cryptocurrency). I wondered whether the unbounded greed of a fellow megalomaniac will eventually result in a titanic clash of the zillionaire Boer with the MAGA king Himself. 

While some palace intrigue will be unavoidable, all the Trump courtiers will, no doubt, zealously compete in pleasing the master.  With his sycophantic cabinet and the compliance of a MAGA dominated congress–– Trump will be unhindered in draining the swamp, deporting the aliens, shredding environmental regulations and wreaking revenge on “the enemies within”…

It was also noted that the least controversial of Trump’s initial picks–– Rubio, Stefanik and Huckabee–– could be the most insidious. That trio of rabid Zionists soon to oversee Middle East policy could effectively become the horsemen of the apocalypse. In the lead-up to Armageddon, America will “have Israel’s back” in “finishing the job” of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. Sadly, American Arabs who voted for Trump to punish “genocide Joe” were forewarned…

On the following bus trips from Palenque to Escarcega and then to Chetumal, I listened to several podcasts downloaded from Spotify. Those included ‘BBC Global News’, ‘The Guardian Politics Weekly’ and ‘Pod Save America’. All offered analyses of how the Dems lost to a candidate so egregiously flawed. That gave rise to my own dark speculations:

Plainly, the MAGA victory was not only determined by the animus of racists, evangelicals and misogynists. The polls were probably moved as much by apathy and resignation as by fear and resentment. 

Trump’s unfitness for office did not matter to a majority of the electorate. Long before the campaign, most Americans knew his character as well as they knew the darkness in their own hearts. A third of voters adored him and a third despised him. The remaining third were possibly ambivalent: uncomfortable with his rants but feeling they had been better off under his first administration. Many were far more perturbed about rising prices than any supposed threat to democracy.

Despite her mere hundred days of candidacy, Kamala Harris make a good college-try. In a country where the average voter is a middle-aged white man without a college degree ––a female California liberal of mixed race, polled remarkably well.  In 2016, Hillary Clinton did slightly better against Trump–– but Kamala at least avoided a GOP landslide. That would have been a near certainly had Biden not stepped aside– damningly late as he did.

Yet Trump won and his policies are set to change the course of history.  Climate change is but one of the pressing global issues which he holds in contempt. It is gut-wrenching that 50% of American voters–– representing fewer than 1% of the earth’s eight billion people–– could so imperil the fate of the planet itself… 

In those post-mortem podcasts, anti-Trumpers were choking back tears. Unlike in 2016, there was little talk of mounting a full-throated early resistance. Indeed, there was discussion of the merits of stepping aside while waiting for the administration to self-destruct. A bitter hope was also expressed that coming MAGA policies would hurt working-class Trump voters. It was agreed they deserved a rude awakening.  A podcaster on ‘The Bulwark’ remarked: ‘Voters who put their hand on the hot stove will soon know why they were warned not to touch it’… 

While waiting in the departure gate of Areopuerto Cancun for the flight home, I was grateful that the anti-Trump podcasters were talking about their country–– not mine. At the same time, I thought about how I might feel as a progressive American after such a bitter defeat. It was undeniable that democracy had ruled. Americans would thereby be getting the government they deserved. In commitment to democracy, the 47% who voted for Harris would have to bear the humiliation… Yet if MAGA 2.0 should prove as disastrous for the world order as feared–– all Americans will share in the collective guilt. “Good Americans” might then find themselves in the position of “good Germans” after WWII…

Back home from the brief Mexican getaway, the Trump transition news has been even harder to tune out. There is growing evidence of the worst expectations. Especially disheartening was news of ‘progressive’ journalists (such as NBC’s Scarborough and Brzezinski), bending their knees before the Mar a Lago throne…  Meanwhile, mainstream media has been increasingly excoriating Democrats for being out of touch. While there is near silence on Trump’s fear-mongering rhetoric, Dems are now being accused of having exaggerated the Trump threat.

Typical was a recent piece in ‘USA Today’, entitled: ‘Trump isn’t Mussolini. Virtue signaling about fascism shows liberals’ ignorance’.  Then there have been assurances of columnists that the key Trump picks who will shape economic policy are stolid Republicans––with similar backgrounds as appointees of Reagan or the Bushes (who are now regarded in Trump-world as ‘RINOS’)…Yet will American democracy be secured by a cabinet of billionaires along with a presidential sidekick who is also the richest man in the world? Those cowardly journalists could use a primer on Poly Sci 100 to be reminded that oligarchy thrives in a fascist state–– with or without a dictator…

In any case, all assurances of a businessman’s steady hand on the tiller was flushed away a few days ago by a bombshell announcement from the golden toilet throne.  A ‘Truth Social’ post made plain that Trump intended to follow neo-mercantilist policies that are the economic equivalent of the flat-earth theory… He vowed that on his first day in office, he would impose 25% tariffs on both Mexico and Canada.

Trade war on Canada?  What seems like a satirical B-movie story line could also be a Trump bullying tactic from ‘The Art of the Deal’. Hammering Canada and Mexico straight out of the gate would also be a show of American toughness to the world at large.  Still, there is the possibility that he truly despises Canada (for some Trudeau affront?) and would take pleasure in destroying our economy…… 

The home front was appropriately shaken. Premier Ford of Ontario was shocked that Canada was lumped with Mexico for reprisals. His comparison of feeling “stabbed in the heart by a family member” sounded as vaguely racist as the anachronistic words etched on the B.C. Peace Arch border-crossing monument: ‘Sons of a common mother’.  D. Smith, the slimy premier of Alberta, initially hinted at pursuing a separate deal for oil exports… No doubt Trump would take glee in such infighting. He is looking forward to the delegations of grovellers…  

One can only hope that a united ‘Team Canada’ approach does not falter. At the same time, both Canada and Mexico must resist tyrannica Americae in being drawn into separate––and obviously weaker–– trade agreements. La lucha debe continuar!

In the longer term, our fragile dominion needs to find more reliable trading partners. Yet with a Conservative federal government in waiting–– Trump just might get his ideal Canuck negotiating partner. Will a toady Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre sell us down the river?  In about a year from now, we will likely know… 

Perhaps for Canada to survive as a real country, a wall is needed across our southern border.  Such a barrier covering 8800 kms from sea to sea would be a more gargantuan undertaking than was the creation of the Great Wall of China. Ours would serve the same purpose: to keep out the barbarians… I would gladly leave a modest donation in my will to pay for a few bricks of it…

 -2024, November

👍🏼 😐 😬 🥱 👎 💩